


Lux lucis quod sanus by

by Clocketpatch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 19:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clocketpatch/pseuds/Clocketpatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Free will is only an illusion of the light, and nothing really exists in the dark, so what is he doing wrong? The Doctor and the Master have very different ways of seeing the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lux lucis quod sanus by

**Author's Note:**

> hmm, and I once swore up and down that I would never *ever* write a story using the name Theta Sigma because it annoys me to no end most times when I see it elsewhere. Funny how that works isn't it? Also, please excuse the bad Latin of the title. I don't actually know the language; I'm just yoinking words out of an online dictionary and hoping they're right.
> 
>  
> 
>  **UPDATE!** Poetry has created an awesome audio production of this story. You can download it here: http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/lux-lucis-quod-sanus

_  
****  
_

Lux lucis quod sanus

  


  


  


  
Can you feel it? Can you feel the light? Do you hear it?  


  
  
Do you know it as it is; as vibrations in the ether, and waves crashing against the shores of planets, matter, men.  


  
  
Or do you only see it; watch it from the outside, caught in the details, never knowing the truth —  


  
  
*  


  
  
He has bad eyes.  


  
  
It’s not something they test for, because it’s not something that happens, and as such it goes unnoticed. Even he doesn’t realize his own blindness, well, eventually, but that will be much later.  


  
  
He sees the world as if a mist hangs over every colour and shade; Shapes that blur and twist and deceive. It is a frightening landscape for a child, but it is all he knows, and he copes. Sometimes he is shy or feels stupid when he fails to see what others are pointing at; all those outstretched fingers aimed at nothing.  


  
  
For the longest time he thinks this is normal; that the shape of things should change depending on distance, time, and space. That trees should be silver balls from afar and only develop leaves when one stood a finger’s length from touching. That birds might take flight, and, literally, vanish into the sky.  


  
  
It shapes him.  


  
  
He speaks of things which no one else sees, because none of his perfect-eyed peers do see. Not like him. They are caught into details but fail to recognize the larger patterns. All he can see is the pattern, the patchwork, the world.  


  
  
He doesn’t do so well in school; not being able to see the holoboard hinders his progress. He feels stupid again, and wonders often if something is intrinsically wrong with him. In a way he is right; there is something wrong. What he doesn’t realize is that buried beneath his handicap is a talent which sets him apart from his peers, makes him the wisest of them all, and, one day, will set him free.  


  
  
In lieu of sight, he learns to hear.  


  
  
He listens to the echoes of the cosmos and weaves those tones and notes into the pattern of blurs. He makes connections and the result is the far-vision of true knowledge. He understands music and sound and waves. If his eyes are faulty then his ears are extraordinary. Like a bat or a whale, he hears the world.  


  
  
More than that, he hears thought, and future, and even light.  


  
  
He learns that hearing is more than sound; it is also vibration, and the ability to feel the world shifting beneath his feet. Time passes, as it does.  


  
  
He stands at the centre, and feels the universe turn.  


  
  
*  


  
  
He has perfect eyes.  


  
  
He has fine ears also, but he rarely uses them. They are blocked by the drums, the pounding, and the bass. It gives him headaches, and so he quite often shuts off the part of his brain which deals with auditory interpretation. It doesn’t stop the drums, but it does quiet them considerably.  


  
  
Instead, he watches. He has very keen vision, and an eye for details. He has no handicap, only an asset — after all, he can turn his hearing on and off as he wishes. Also, he can lip read in a dozen languages. Even when a person is facing away, he can still read their mouths by shadows, refracted light, and the tiniest rainbow shimmers —  


  
  
He doesn’t see light like others do; as an effect when it hits an object and bounces back. He sees the light itself; its journey, its speed, and the disruptions along its path. The world shimmers and glows according to the whims of the light and all of his peers lead their lives to that illusion. That, he thinks, is power.  


  
  
It shapes him.  


  
  
He learns to live like light; planning for every contingency, for every obstacle which must come. He always carries a mirror in his pocket.  


  
  
He does very well in school. His customary position is the furthest back row of the lecture hall. He likes being able to see over everyone’s head, to be the tallest in the room, and to know that he, and he alone, sees all.  


  
  
He watches the holoboard, and even from the distance he can see every word written, every diagram, every solution. He commits all of these things to a memory as sharp as his sight. He has no need to write anything down, but he does so for the benefit of his friend —  


  
  
Oh, that poor, blind friend.  


  
  
It took the Academy a long time to realize why the blind boy always did so poor on exams. He’d actually failed his first attempt, which would have been his last attempt had it not been for the discovery of his handicap. Now, armed with a bulky vision-synthesis device, Theta sits in the front row of the lecture hall, still straining to see.  


  
  
The Master watches his friend’s back. He has pity for Theta. He cannot imagine being so near-sighted, so unable to pick out the clean details of the world, the sharpness of life, and ice, and heat.  


  
  
It’s a funny thing, but the more the Master watches, the more he imagines he can see. Every detail of Theta’s simple, student robes, every nuance of colour, every thread. If the Master looks harder the details become finer until he can see the bare molecules and atoms and electrons of the robe’s construction, and then smaller, to the very dust of the universe. If he looks hard enough he can see through the robes, which are not so substantial at an atomic level. He can see Theta’s face, despite it being turned away.  


  
  
But he doesn’t look that hard very often, because sometimes he sees things which he can’t quite grasp; terrible, frightening things —  


  
  
He thinks that he can see what others are thinking, he thinks that, within the firing of their synapses, he is beginning to recognize patterns. And, as he recognises, he also sees what it might take to destabilize those patterns, to change a thought or to corrupt a soul.  


  
  
The Master thinks that he can see his own future, and it terrifies him.  


  
  
*  


  
  
Theta was only a nickname, and Sigma was only his father. He sheds both as soon as possible when he leaves. Names are important he knows, because names are sound, and sound is life, and life cannot be given haphazardly. His grand-daughter is too young to know that and she takes on a new sobriquet at every stop, and he humours her because it is less confusing that way.  


  
  
She calls him Grandfather. He calls himself nothing.  


  
  
She leads him by the hand quite a bit, or tries to, since she, like the others, operates under the assumption that he is just a blind, old-bodied man. Except, she is not exactly like the others. He has known that since the pitter-patter of little feet across tiled floor, and heated argument with —  


  
  
But that is in the past now. His vision-synthesis device lies crushed on a cold mountain slope of a world they can never return to. He has left behind his name, and he has also left behind those constraints which idiot well-wishers would impose on them for being different.  


  
  
“Grandfather! Grandfather! I’ve got a present for you!”  


  
  
Her voice is expectant and happy. He tries and fails to give an appropriate response. He is fraught by worries. They’ve landed on a primitive world and he wants to leave. It’s too close to Gallifrey; within the same galaxy! He can practically hear the CIA aiming their retrieval ships, but he says nothing to Susan, as she is calling herself these days. He takes the present she is offering to him. She’s wrapped it up in foil the silly girl. It rustles as he unfolds the edges. The sound sends delicate ripples into the air.  


  
  
“Eh, hmmm, what are these?” he asks, though he has an idea and it breaks against his soul like shattered glass.  


  
  
“Spectacles Grandfather, try them on!”  


  
  
“Hrmph.”  


  
  
He does, briefly, just to see the smile on her face. Then he shoves them into his pocket because he knows that he doesn’t need such a primitive put-together to see the world. He’ll keep them though, as a memento, and also for those days when he needs to read the fine print. Later, much later, he will grieve and replace them when they are lost. Crushed on the same cold mountain slope, surrounded by ash.  


  
  
“Something else Grandfather,” says Susan.  


  
  
“Hmmm?”  


  
  
“I’ve decided to apply for school here.”  


  
  
Before he knows it, he has a name written out in fine ink on the fourth line of a registration form. Not much later, two teachers say it out loud and make it real.  


  
  
*  


  
  
_Look into my eyes._   


  
  
He tries on other names, dressing according to the occasion, but in the end he is always, immutably, the Master. He has been, in his own mind at least, since his Academy days, though it’s only recently that he has taken to using the name out loud. It sounds good, but it looks better. In every language which requires lips the movement is the same: closed together, resisting; then parting in submission; then the final pucker, the please, the power. The Ma-as-ter.  


  
  
He leaves Gallifrey early on, and he is not running away from anything or anyone. He sees his goals clearly, and he will complete them. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone, but if they get in his way then so be it.  


  
  
Their eyes are not as clear as his. They can’t see how things could be better with just a little tweaking. Maybe his inferiors think that his methods aren’t moral, but he is building a better universe. Free will is only an illusion of the light, and nothing really exists in the dark, so what is he doing wrong? Consciousness and civilization are both nothing more than tricks of low-level electric impulses spitting back and forth through grey matter. It takes only a nudge to redirect the flow of those impulses.  


  
  
He is peaceable in his take-overs, and he only gives them what they want to see.  


  
  
_Look into my eyes._   


  
  
he tells them, never revealing the balance of that equation;  


  
  
_And I will look into you._   


  
  
*  


  
  
“This Jamie, is my sonic screwdriver. It never fails.”  


  
  
It’s something he’s been tinkering with for awhile. In this newest regeneration his vision is better. Indeed, it is near perfect. Though not quite, and he still keeps Susan’s spectacles in his pocket even if he doesn’t use them anymore. Perhaps in a future life? He holds onto that thought wistfully, and then blows at the thick, black hair which keeps swinging into his eyes.  


  
  
He has been made a new man, and he isn’t sure if he likes it. Gallifrey is upping the ante on his arrest; all of the renegades are being pursued because of the actions of one rogue. He heard rumours floating by on the breeze of the vortex during his regeneration, and he is afraid.  


  
  
He can see in this incarnation, but by consequence his hearing is muffled by the light. He is terrified that his enemies will come and he won’t hear them sneaking up behind. Worse, he can no longer hear Susan’s footsteps echoing across time and space, or listen in as she tucks his great-grandson to bed. How can he keep them safe now?  


  
  
He can’t even hear the right notes as he plays on his recorder.  


  
  
_“It never fails.”_   


  
  
He holds on tight to the vibrating silver tube of his new tool. So far all it can do is loosen and tighten bolts, but one day it will do more. Even as a new man, with new eyes and a shaggy bowl cut, the Doctor has not lost touch with the weave of the cosmos; He knows with each double pump of his hearts that sound is what ties it all together.  


  
  
Even when they catch him and rip everything apart.  


  
  
*  


  
  
“Look at me, you old man, LOOK!”  


  
  
The drums are loud and the Master shouts to be heard. He holds the loose, aged skin of the Doctor’s face pressed between his hands. He holds the Doctor close, because he knows about his once-friend’s poor eyes, and the secrets which he keeps.  


  
  
“I have only one thing to say…” says the Doctor, again. It is a tiny whisper, and the Master doesn’t hear it, or the crack of defiance, and the weakness, or the way age has made the Doctor’s voice gravely —  


  
  
He doesn’t hear, but he guesses from the set of the Doctor’s brow, and the movement of his mouth, and the way the light distorts in front of sound.  


  
  
The Master releases the Doctor and pulls out his laser screwdriver — light as a tool, light as a weapon — and hopes to see fear.  


  
  
Instead there is only acceptance and forgiveness, both spoken using that sense which the Doctor has and the Master lacks. The Master has never been able to read his friend, or control him — the Doctor’s thoughts are an alien code, a triangle chiming weakly beside the drums.  


  
  
The Master clutches his weapon, furious. But he doesn’t use it, and after a moment (time passing, as it does) he turns away. The only thing he can accurately read in the Doctor’s eyes is pity, and the knowledge that they are both playing out that future which the Master saw and the Doctor felt —  


  
  
Their destiny is inescapable, and they are both only pawns to time, to light and sound.  


  


  


  


  
_fini_

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=29190>


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